It was characteristic of him that the anxiety this caused was only for those who were waiting, expecting him hourly, and wondering why he didn't come. He had no sense of fear for himself, no feeling of despairing loneliness that might be expected to arise from being so long isolated in space. It was only that he would have liked some one to talk to, besides himself.
On a fair number of planets he found animal-like creatures in different stages of development, and on a few he discovered life that was intelligent. It was with these that he had a renewed feeling of anticipation, the spark of hope glowing momentarily before it faded again.
"It's intelligent life I've got to find," he told himself. "But where?"
His astronomical memory, insofar as it covered the post-nova period, was perfect, and he paid more attention to the details of star-and-planet configuration than he had ever done before. Gradually a star-map formed in his mind, a map that covered enormous distances of space. Those places he had investigated and eliminated from consideration were slowly crossed off. It was a large needle he had to find, and his own powers were considerable, but the haystack he had to search was infinite. There was no telling how many more centuries would pass before he found it.
And then another thought struck him. They'd know back home that something had gone wrong. Would they send someone else to do the job in his place?
He rather doubted it. He had a vague feeling that there weren't many with his own peculiar talents. What had to be done had to be done by him, or left undone altogether.
More time passed. And one day, when the space charted on his brain-map had grown to vast dimensions, and the spark of hope had become so tiny that he was not quite sure any longer that it was there at all, he noted from a distance a galaxy that seemed familiar.
"That's it!" he cried. "That's it!"
The spark flared, and as he sped toward the galaxy it became a flame. It was a lens-shaped assemblage of stars, with two small spiral arms composed of a few million stars each, and it was seemingly not too different from millions of other galaxies he had passed in the course of all those centuries. But to him, seeking so desperately, this galaxy was unique. It was the right one. He coursed through it from spiral arm to spiral arm, and now there could be no doubt. The star he wanted was small and yellowish, far from the center of the lens. It had a rather elaborate planetary system, which he recognized at once.
This was it. The third planet, the one with a single subsatellite, was the one he had been sent to find. To find, and perhaps to help. But how?